Fantasy Football RB1 Candidates: Top-5 Contenders to To Dethrone Saquon Barkley in 2025

Justin's top five running backs who can dethrone Saquon Barkley as the redraft RB1 in 2025 dynasty football leagues. His candidates include Jahmyr Gibbs and more.

Saquon Barkley's move to the Eagles last season was the kind of move that redefined how we think of a player's career. Suddenly, Barkley wasn't just a former No. 2 overall pick whose career numbers were good, but not great. Instead, Barkley will be remembered for rushing for over 2,000 yards and winning a Super Bowl ring.

Heading into 2025, Barkley is pretty clearly the No. 1 running back in redraft leagues. However, that's not to say he'll finish there. Whether from Barkley disappointing or simply from someone else stepping up, anything can happen in the NFL.

Here are five players who could knock Saquon Barkley out of the top spot and finish as the overall RB1 in 2025.

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Jahmyr Gibbs - Detroit Lions

Jahmyr Gibbs led the NFL in rushing touchdowns last season despite splitting the running back role in Detroit with David Montgomery. Gibbs led the team with 250 carries, but Montgomery had 185 attempts and 12 touchdowns of his own.

Heading into 2025, it's not quite clear how the Lions and new offensive coordinator John Morton plan to use Gibbs, but the potential is there for Gibbs to be the top fantasy scorer at the position.

There are two different ways that could happen.

First, there's the simplest version, which is that Montgomery starts to show some signs of wear, and the Lions work on getting Gibbs even more involved in the run game than before. He finished last year with 95 fewer carries than Barkley did, but if those numbers are closer together, Gibbs has a shot to simply outperform Barkley on the ground.

Throw Jahmyr Gibbs the football and good things happen pic.twitter.com/pggtIjwaDh

— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) July 6, 2025

The other possibility is that Morton's offseason talk about using Gibbs as an actual wide receiver pans out. Maybe it's just coach speak, but Gibbs said to reporters recently that he's "being split out like way more than I was the past two years."

If Gibbs gets around the same number of backfield touches as last year but then also is used at wide receiver in a meaningful way when Montgomery is on the field, he could be in for a season that breaks the brains of everyone watching NFL football in the fall.

Bijan Robinson - Atlanta Falcons

After a decent rookie season, Bijan Robinson broke out in a big way last season for the Falcons, rushing for 14 touchdowns and finishing the year with 1,887 scrimmage yards. We can probably stop worrying about Tyler Allgeier impacting his production, y'all.

Robinson is a game-breaking talent, a player capable of making a significant impact at every level of the game. He ranked in the top five among running backs in both rushing and receiving yards last season.

My one concern here is the quarterback situation in Atlanta. Robinson ate as a receiver with Kirk Cousins under center, but not so much with Michael Penix Jr. While he was only targeted 0.3 times per game less with Penix under center, Robinson averaged 29.4 receiving yards per game with Cousins under center. He had 20 receiving yards total in three games with Penix under center.

There's some reason to worry that Penix won't check it down as often as Cousins, but if that worry is proven wrong — and to be fair, I do think it will be — then Robinson has a shot at another huge season for the Falcons.

Ashton Jeanty - Las Vegas Raiders

Ashton Jeanty is in the perfect spot to get near limitless volume. The Boise State product is coming off one of the best collegiate seasons ever and landed with a Raiders team where his only real competition for touches is Raheem Mostert.

In an apparent “off” night for him, Ashton Jeanty had 217 yards rushing and a season LOW average 7.0 yards per carry.

Season LOW. 😳#HEI2MAN pic.twitter.com/fRUnV1IVaQ

— Patrick Walsh (@Walsh_PT) October 13, 2024

He also won't have much competition from the team's passing attack. Acquiring Geno Smith at quarterback was a nice move for Vegas, but the receiving game is still a question mark because there are only two dependable pass catchers on this team: tight end Brock Bowers and wide receiver Jakobi Meyers.

That should mean the Raiders lean heavily on Jeanty, something he's used to after rushing 374 times for 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns last season. Jeanty finished second in the Heisman voting, something relatively unheard of for a player at the Group of Five level.

There just aren't many holes in Jeanty's game. He's got a strong frame that allows him to power through contact for extra yards, but also the foot speed to simply avoid that contact on a routine basis. He didn't catch many passes last year, but you can easily argue that was situational, as he caught 43 balls in 2023 and was a receiver in high school.

An every-down back with Jeanty's talent and projected workload easily has a shot to finish as the RB1. Mostert siphoning off a bit more goal-line work than you'd like is probably the only real concern here when it comes to figuring out Jeanty's ceiling.

Derrick Henry - Baltimore Ravens

Does Derrick Henry have one more monster season left in him?

After a 2023 season that saw Henry finish with his fewest yards per game since 2018, the veteran running back signed with the Ravens last offseason, where he immediately went back to being the Henry we all know.

Henry co-led the NFL in touchdown runs with 16 while averaging 113.0 rushing yards per game. He also tied his career high with two touchdown receptions.

It was the kind of performance that, frankly, didn't seem like it was still possible after how his final season with the Titans went, but I guess that's why you should never doubt the King.

Logic says we shouldn't expect a 31-year-old Henry to have another season like 2024. For a guy with this much wear and tear on his body to rush for 1,921 yards in a season was astonishing. It was the most yards ever by a running back at age 30.

But while this level of production at this age is exceedingly rare, it's not impossible. Tiki Barber rushed for 18.60 yards in his age-30 season, then managed to follow that up with 1,662 yards the next season.

It's unlikely but not impossible that Henry approaches 2,000 yards on the ground again while leading the NFL in touchdown runs.

De'Von Achane - Miami Dolphins

The likelihood of De'Von Achane making the leap to the RB1 spot is lower than the rest of the players on this list, but it's not outside the realm of possibilities.

We know Achane is one of the most talented backs in the league. He's a huge threat on the ground and in the receiving game, finishing 2024 with 1,499 scrimmage yards and 12 touchdowns.

De’Von Achane Averaged 7.8 Yards Per Carry on 100+ Attempts as a ROOKIE

..and then he caught 78 passes in Year 2

➖275+ Touches
➖1,500 Total Yards
➖300 Fantasy Points

Reminder that his 4.32 40 Time Ranked in the 100th Percentile.. pic.twitter.com/iMNEt7X6Ea

— Austin Abbott (@AustinAbbottFF) June 10, 2025

Over his first two seasons, Achane has had to contend with a crowded backfield. In 2023, Mostert led the NFL in rushing touchdowns, cutting into Achane's scoring upside. Then last year, things cleared out a bit more, but you still had Mostert and Jaylen Wright combining for 153 carries.

Mostert is now gone, and while the Dolphins added Alexander Mattison in free agency and Ollie Gordon II in the draft, neither player should pose a significant threat to Achane.

But this is where the doubt creeps in. It seems pretty clear that Mike McDaniel doesn't want to overwork Achane based on usage over the last two seasons. It might be for the best for fantasy managers to see Achane fully unleashed, but it doesn't seem to be what McDaniel believes is right for the Dolphins.

So, we have to contend with that. Achane has RB1 talent, but he doesn't have an RB1 situation. Something would need to change. However, it's still possible enough to warrant discussion.

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